Aluminium welds are spatter-free

When one of the World's leaders in On and Off-Road motorcycles, CCM Motorcycles, needed to improve production outputs they turned to Kemppi's PRO 4000 Synergic MIG welding equipment.

When one of the World's leaders in On and Off-Road motorcycles, CCM Motorcycles of Blackburn, Lancashire, needed to improve production outputs they turned to Kemppi's PRO 4000 Synergic MIG welding equipment.

Demand from around the World was starting to outstrip their ability to manufacture bikes fast enough, in particular with their new R30 Supermoto.

CCM was TIG welding the aluminium swinging arms, comprising a 10mm bridge forging, two 3.2mm arms and two forged forks to make the swing arm of their bikes, a slow process and they needed an alternative.

The local Kemppi dealer, General Welding Supplies in Widnes was contacted and their representative Kevin Hamilton came in to discuss the problem and he had the answer in Kemppi's PRO Synergic Welding System.

A demonstration was organised and they left the equipment with them to try for themselves.

CCM were delighted with the results, the equipment was fulfilling all their criteria, including producing a spatter free weld with a good appearance, important when you polish the welds and leave them exposed for the owners to see.

Stuart Shore, a Team Leader in the Fabrication shop at CCM said: General Welding's demonstration and leaving us the equipment to do our own evaluations, definitely made up our minds.

So we invested in a Kemppi PRO 4000 power source, MG500 wire feed unit with a MX control panel and a 400A MIG torch.

General Welding programmed the equipment with 4 weld settings to meet our requirements and only occasionally does the operator need to adjust the parameters to meet his own preferences; PRO4000 is so easy to use, just one knob to control and adjust the parameters.

Our operators have little setup time, just turn the equipment on and it is ready to use.

We generate enough heat around the weld to get good penetration.

We have dissected a weld to prove this and in fact, we get better penetration than with TIG.

We don't have to pre-heat as we do with TIG, which saves on gas and time.

Using TIG it takes up to 2 hours to complete a swing arm, now it is down to about 40 minutes, with only about 50% of the welds currently being completed using Synergic.

It is a massive saving on labour costs and materials.

For a start, you use a lot of gas in two hours.

We also get greater welder comfort as a MIG weld takes a fraction of the time of a TIG weld.

We have improved production from 4 swing arms per day, which was not meeting our target of 30 per week, to 10 a day.

I know we can improve even more as our operators become more practised in using the PRO4000.

The service from General Welding Supplies has been exemplary and they have helped us whenever we have needed questions answering.

To have this standard of service helps with the confidence we have built up in Kemppi's welding equipment.

Now with Kemppi's PRO4000 Synergic MIG welding system, we have the capacity to meet the increasing demand for our products into the future." Kemppi (UK) Ltd is the Bedford based welding equipment manufacturer, whose parent company is Kemppi OY in Lahti, Finland.

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